The entity called Małopolskie Province is elsewhere rendered as "Lesser Poland Voivodeship", which makes the country sound more difficult to navigate than it really is. I propose that, as there, we standardise on referring to "Province" with the Polish version of each name. (Maybe an exception for Silesia, as that is so embedded in English usage.) I don't propose any change to the national hierarchy of pages, which was debated six-seven years ago and appears to have stood the test of time. However from work on Małopolskie, it looks like there may be several extra-hierarchical pages that are little more than lists of cities, not adding anything as a "park" page should. The biggest offender is Carpathian Mountains which involves several other countries. Grahamsands (talk) 23:20, 16 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

It seems that "Voivodeship" is the term most commonly used in England for the subnational jurisdictions of Poland (see w:Voivodeships of Poland, for example.) I think we should use the most commonly used English term, even if it is a foreign word that has been adopted in English, rather than something else, as we refer to the Shah of Iran or the Tsar of Russia instead of calling them kings. Ground Zero (talk) 04:32, 17 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

The difference is that no term at all can be said to be "common" in English for województwa, created in 1999, whereas those other examples have centuries-long usage. So "Province" here makes life easier for the reader and visitor yet doesn't impair communications with local folk. There's an explainer of the Polish term in Małopolskie#Understand and something akin could be added to any other geo-political entity. Grahamsands (talk) 21:20, 18 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

Poland has been divided into voivideships since the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and that was centuries ago. Province is not the right term, no matter whether you think it's easier or not. A closer English equivalent would be county or duchy, since voivodes were aristrocrats of about the level of a count or duke. But voivodeship is most correct.

Furthermore, I'm not altogether sure why we use the Polish names for these voivodeships when Wikipedia uses the English terms (Lesser Poland etc), which is normally a good indicator of the most common name in English, per their own common name policy. Also, Malopolskie (my phone keyboard doesn't even have the soft L available to spell it correctly) is an adjective to be used with the noun województwa - "Lesser Polish voivodeship" - whereas the noun form is Malopolska. I would suggest, when we can't even get the Polish name right, we stick to the English. The same goes for the other voivodeships, in my view.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 08:53, 19 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

The Wikipedia article says:

"A voivodeship (Polish: województwo; plural: województwa) is the highest-level administrative subdivision of Poland, corresponding to a "province" in many other countries. The term has been in use since the 14th century, and is commonly translated in English as "province" or "state". The Polish local government reforms... which went into effect on 1 January 1999, created 16 new voivodeships. These replaced the 49 former voivodeships that had existed from 1 July 1975...."

It seems that Wikipedia believes that województwo is used for both the historic subdivisions and the current ones. Wikipedia could be wrong. Do you have sources that say that "voivodeship" is no longer used in English for subdivisions? Ground Zero (talk) 12:27, 19 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

No, and by "common" I was simply distinguishing words like "czar" which have common English usage, from the distinctly uncommon voivodeships - but I'll have to accept that the latter is authoritative, and drop the suggestion. Grahamsands (talk) 13:06, 20 January 2020 (UTC)Reply

This group of a dozen mountain ranges lies mainly in southern Poland. See Beskids Talk page for a proposal to redirect some of the subpages on those constituent ranges. Grahamsands (talk) 10:53, 30 March 2020 (UTC)Reply

1. I have fixed the spelling mistakes (including the glaring "polish X").

2. I have removed the minutae about the per MB Internet rates - they change too quickly anyway and most of folks buy a whole monthly package.

3. I have removed some, but the other claims I would not touch (yet), but they smack of POV and imputed ultranationalism: "don't talk about neighbour Z as most Poles dislike them, oh, don't mention the war (recent or ancient)", or this whole fragment:

Although not very offensive, if used, it may reflect foreigners' ignorance and a certain disrespect of the history and clearly Latin cultural heritage of the countries from the region. Poles themselves refer to the "old" EU west of its borders as "Zachód" (West) and to the states created after the break-up of the USSR as "Wschód" (East). Geographically this is borne out by drawing a line from the tip of Norway to Greece and from the Urals to the coast of Portugal. For better or worse, Poland remains at the crossroads of Europe, right in the continent's center. In global terms, politically, culturally and historically, Poland belongs to "the West".

It may have been true in the 1980s when the Poles tried to catch up with "the West" but now the usual term is the standard PC one: "Central and Eastern Europe", while the "drawing the north-south line on the map" trope may work with pub coasters only, after a couple of bevvies and while trying to teach the local take on the similar Ribbentrop-Molotov paper napkin deals to the foreigners. Zezen (talk) 14:17, 5 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

That italicized paragraph does look weird to me. "Drawing a line from the tip of Norway to Greece" - I have never heard anyone suggest that before. Maybe remove that paragraph, particularly the ending part? --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:26, 5 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Go for it @SelfieCity. I am a newbie here, see also my meta comments in my Talk, so I'd much rather you did it. Zezen (talk) 14:29, 5 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

I've started by removing those last two sentences. However, I hesitate to make substantial changes as it's not a country about which I know much at all. It would be best for you to plunge forward with straightforward edits, and for more substantial issues within the article, if proposed adjustments have approval here, you can feel free to improve it as you like. Unlike some wikis where new editors are restricted from editing, we have no such restrictions here. --Comment by Selfie City (talk | contributions) 14:32, 5 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Oki and ta: will do so then to this fragment. Zezen (talk) 15:22, 5 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

OK, fixed.

Now that I think of it again, I would also elaborate on "do not praise Communism or Stalin in public", as it is formally banned in the Constitution itself, not only there but also in the whole CEE region (see enwiki which ones): at best such apologists will be treated kindly on individual level, yet as a traveller curios, at worst: the will be arrested by the services. I leave it to smb else. Zezen (talk) 15:43, 5 August 2021 (UTC)Reply

Ping @ThunderingTyphoons! as it is a bit meta and I do not know where to alert about it.

Right now Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Germany and a couple of other countries are a conduit for mass migration from southern countries, see Belsat: How Belarusian corridor of irregular migration works and Oko Press: A death trap. The people of the Middle East do not know what a nightmare awaits them at the border (Gtranslated link, best as with maps) or enwiki: 2021 Belarus–European Union border crisis and Yemeni (sic) travel warning: "[condolences for the dead and] The Ministry calls on its citizens not to be drawn into suspicious calls for illegal immigration, which poses a great risk to their personal safety, a threat to their lives, and a violation of the laws of other countries."

In very short, it is supported by state agencies: "Belarusian state-owned Tsentrkurort travel agency (Russian: Центркурорт; subordinated to the presidential administration of Belarus) is named among the organizations directly responsible for human trafficking", as part of geopolitics and more, is much similar to the 2015 wave though Turkey, Greece and Italy. The LI-, LT-, PL- border regions have been under martial law and more, e.g. "On 6 October 2021, Polish minister of national defence ... announced that the army will use military helicopters to patrol the border. On 8 October, ... Belarusian border guards helped the migrants to cross the border [and were] shooting (presumably with blank cartridges). "

These people, deceived by human traffickers, die (mostly of cold and hunger) in Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland's border forests, while locals, activists, bystanders and some business tourists (e.g. a German DW press team) are arrested, fined and detained.

IMHO, we need to update this series of articles just in case somebody reads them before they travel there or through there, including hopefully these migrants themselves. I do not how to phrase it though, so I am only alerting you hereby.

Zezen (talk) 08:02, 10 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

I think the best page for the purpose would be Asylum seeking or a similar page. I don't know whether we have the expertise to write it.

We can warn refugees for these countries. But what would we suggest instead? Getting a slot on a rubber boat to cross the Mediterranean? To stay in the refugee camp in the Syrian desert? Cross Sahara to storm the border fence of Ceuta?

I'd hope EU would disarm the Belarusian regime by following the international treaties and letting the refugees have their cases investigated. If EU would accept asylum applications at their embassies in the countries of origin and any countries where they have found temporary refuge, there would be little incentive to travel through Belarus.

–LPfi (talk) 08:27, 10 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

I am aware of that and have my opinions, however here I operate under WP:NOTAFORUM and do not suggest or comment anything outside the WV scope. My query above is how to update these series of articles. If you think we should not do so at all, do share your thoughts why not. Bows

Zezen (talk) 16:11, 10 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

 :-)

Yes, I'll try not to say more about the underlying issue.

The problem is that given no alternatives, I cannot really say it is a bad idea to come here and try your luck. Yes, you might die in the wintry forest, but you might as well die in the sea or in the desert. Thus, we cannot just tell them to keep away.

What we can do, of course, is to tell what it is like at the border. My suggestion about an asylum seekers' guide was not a joke: I am afraid it'd be WP:UNDUE in the articles in question, as it does not concern our main audience more than marginally, at least if explained at any length. I also cannot say much about the real conditions there, I have to rely on local news, where there are reports mainly when some freelance has been visiting the borders in question, so keeping up to date is difficult.

To avoid the WP:UNDUE issue, we could have a small but visible warning in Get in, pointing to the special guide for more information. What I could say in that article is that international law requires most countries (including any EU country) to investigate the case of any asylum seeker at their border or in their country, but that this usually is not honoured more than in some cases – especially that most western countries do what they can to hinder refugees from reaching a place where they can apply for asylum. Then I'd go on telling about some of the places reported to be especially dangerous, and I'd tell about the Polish border there. Then I'd refer to refugee networks in general (and that any specific advice would probably lead to those routes and contacts being closed down), and mention that there are NGOs and governmental offices trying to assist in legal and practical matters, but usually not able to arrange immigration.

–LPfi (talk) 16:36, 10 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

I get your drift, @LPfi, and I mostly agree, apart from "it'd be WP:UNDUE in the articles in question, as it does not concern our main audience more than marginally". We are not commercial, hence we do not have a "target (paying?) audience", unless I am missing something and we had turned into Wikitravel 2 again.

Granted, the migrants do not go for sightseeing, but they do go for <slight irony on> "activities [avoid border guards], cuisine [where and what animal to eat] and accommodation [which tent to sleep in so as not to freeze]", to quote only from the blurb on our welcome page. Ditto enwiki about WV nature: "[Wikivoyage contains] travel topics [that cover] major events that occur in different places; and specialist travel information, such as regional guides to [not die or be sucked into the swamp]". </irony>

FYI, I would start with Belarus itself - this is what the main airport looks like now:

https://belsat.eu/en/news/11-10-2021-migrants-jam-pack-minsk-airport-head-to-border-cities-hrodna-and-brest-sleep-on-streets-pics-videos/ and it affects "regular" travellers, not only "them".

I will leave it to you(s), as my WV contributions have been much limited, cf. my WV vs my Global. Zezen (talk) 14:16, 11 October 2021 (UTC)Reply

See Wikivoyage:Travellers'_pub#Can_an_admin_move_Polish_voivodeship_from_half-Polish_names_to_English?. I suggest discussing things there. Ping folks who participated in relevant discussions here a while back, @Grahamsands, @Ground Zero, @ThunderingTyphoons! Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 05:29, 14 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I realise the media has exacerbated this, but a one-time event does not warrant a warning box, for anyone who's planning to add one. Plus, Poland is a massive country (for a European country) so even if there were one, it should be listed in Lublin Voivodeship first. I encourage anyone who's planning to add one to discuss this first before adding one – pointlessly edit warring does not help us get very far. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 06:39, 16 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

The latest reports I've read are that this is a one-off accident from the Ukrainian side. Ikan Kekek (talk) 15:52, 16 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Not necessarily one-off, if it was an anti-aircraft missile that went astray. I haven't heard why that would have happened (and it may be a military secret), but I can imagine missiles missing their target and hitting something else, so as long as Russia bombards areas near Poland that could happen again, even if everybody tries to be careful. Still you'd need to be extremely unlucky to be in the vicinity. We could perhaps say something about the border region, I assume there are other dangers as well. –LPfi (talk) 17:03, 16 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Plus, it's now thought that the missile was Ukrainian. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 07:53, 17 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Yes. I was aware of that when writing my comment. I don't know the reason why it ended up in Poland. –LPfi (talk) 09:58, 17 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Possibly a system error? Why else would it head away from Russia. We'll probably have to wait till the investigations have concluded, though. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 10:02, 17 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Possibly. I don't know what such missiles do (as intended or otherwise) if they miss, or in what circumstances you would fire one in the wrong direction (probably easy to do, unless they are very sophisticated). Even when the investigations have concluded, the reasons may be military secrets, especially if this wasn't the expected behaviour of the missile or there was a hard-to-fix problem in the practices. –LPfi (talk) 10:54, 17 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Swept in from the pub

I didn't realize we have this problem at first, since I was looking at Silesian Voivodeship, which is correctly under an English names, but most other Polish voivodeships are under half-Polish names. I moved one or two, but most require an admin to delete a redirect. I've explained this at Talk:Łódzkie but rather than starting 10 or so identical move discussions I'll just make the request here - can an admin move all of them to the same name as on English Wikipedia? You can find the list of the voivdeships at Poland#Regions. And just to be clear, all the Polish names used right now are incorrect as they are just "half names". Polish name for Łódź Voivodeship is not "Łódzkie" but "województwo łódzkie" ("łódzkie" is just an adjestive, i.e. "of Łódź Voivodeship/related to ŁV"), so right now we have the worst naming system possible. I hope the suggestion to use estabilished English names as stable on English Wikipedia won't be controversial? Piotrus (talk) 05:12, 13 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

To take it here was a good move. We should probably link this discussion from Talk:Poland. We usually use English names when those are established, but it is not obvious that the English names are those we should use. Wikipedia does not always make decisions that are the right for us. I am neutral on the subject matter; I have never read about Polish voivodeships in English. –LPfi (talk) 08:47, 13 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

"Łódź Voivodeship-style names are pretty estabilished and official. There is nothing else I can think of outside using Polish terminology which belongs on Polish Wikivoyage, not here (IMHO)."

Piotrus (talk) 14:35, 13 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

If they are moved, I think it should be a regular move with a redirect. Why confuse the reader who comes across an external link to Łódzkie. The articles are over 10 years old, so we should have a very good reason for not having a redirect. AlasdairW (talk) 16:12, 13 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I don't think anybody is suggesting the article shouldn't be found by both names. It's the redirect that is going to be replaced by the article that needs to be deleted, and an admin is needed as there is history. Anyway, I think we should get this straight before moving anything. –LPfi (talk) 18:45, 13 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

Of course, redirects are fine and even expected. Hanyangprofessor2 (talk) 05:27, 14 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

I would normally advocate for using English for article names where possible, but I was interested in which terms the official tourism website for the country used - for the actual headings they use Polish adjectival names (e.g. Mazowieckie Voivodship, Slaskie Voivodship), but in prose they also use the English names (e.g. Mazovia, Silesia). They also only seem to use "the region of Lodz" for the place WV calls Łódzkie. So I don't know what's best.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 11:30, 14 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

@ThunderingTyphoons! "Mazowieckie Voivodship" would be better than just "Mazowieckie", as it clarifies the term. "Mazovia" or "Silesia" are historical regions, not administrative voivodeships (that said, it may be a better long term solution, since voivodeship can be reformed, it happens every now and then). Anyway, note that the Silesia =/= Silesian Voivodeship. As for the official tourism website, setting aside the fact that it is subject to change over time, it is also inconsistent. https://www.poland.travel/en/regions has a text that talks about regions (ex. Malopolska - we don't have an article for that region yet, see :wikipedia:Lesser Poland where Małopolska redirects to on en wiki), a map with only Polish adjectives (just like we do, ex. Malopolskie, note the jarring lack of diacritics), that displays a description with "Malopolskie Voivodeship", and elsewhere on the website has a larger page about "Malopolska Province", located under the url for Malopolskie Voivodeship https://www.poland.travel/en/regions/malopolskie-voivodship-more-than-pastries-with-cream. (Note with my historian hat on: referring to Polish administrative regions as provinces is rare and very imprecise). Can you say inconsistency galore? I think we should keep things simple and use the terms adopted by English Wikipedia, where we had lenghty discussions that reached the current consensus (discussions took place ~15 years ago or so, and the consensus hasn't been challenged since). PS. The current names have to be changed, as "Mazowieckie" is just unclear - are we talking about the voivodeship or the region? Piotrus (talk) 04:52, 15 November 2022 (UTC)Reply

This discussion arose from Polish but it applies to any language where a place-name takes a different adjectival or genitive form. For instance Italian "Bolognese" is English "Bologna (province)". Sticking to the nominative looks the simplest and most applicable rule, but is anyone aware of a language where this won't work? Grahamsands (talk) 18:53, 4 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I don't know Polish, but I do know some Italian, and bolognese (not capitalized in Italian) is an adjective, so it would make no more sense to have a destination article called bolognese than a "New Yorker" or "Australian" article. Ikan Kekek (talk) 19:16, 4 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Actually that example is defunct as the province and city are now co-terminous, but Bolognese with cap is the title given to the page on WV:IT, which we're agreeing is not the style to follow in English, "Bolognese Province" = baloney. I can't think of a language where we should vary the convention, but there are several hundred I don't know. Grahamsands (talk) 22:09, 4 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

It's interesting that they're doing this, because I don't recall that kind of nomenclature in the provinces I spent time in in Italy, such as Provincia di Siena and Provincia di Latina. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:47, 5 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Hello, Italian here. I've been kindly noticed of this discussion. "Bolognese" can be an adjective, as well as a noun that would indicate, generically speaking, Bologna and its surrounding areas. Same way as we say "Senese" for Siena and its surroundings (as well as using "senese" as an adjective). As for the why it.voy decided so, I'd ask @Andyrom75 who is to my knowledge the most experienced 'voyager we have. Sannita (talk) 18:59, 5 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I've bumped here, just because Sannita pinged me. I've quickly looked into the discussion and I'm not sure I got the original point, so I'll limit myself to clarify one aspect on it:voy.

Our policy is to align it:voy article name, to it:w page name when exist and is referred to the same exact toponym witout any kind of difference.

When there the two pages describe a similar territory but not the same exact toponym, we are free to associate a new name.

For example it:Provincia del Verbano-Cusio-Ossola is an article that describe the same exact area of the relevant administrative division. While it:Catanese is an article that describe an area near the city of Catania including part of its province but it's definitely different from it:w:Provincia di Catania or the new it:w:Città metropolitana di Catania. --Andyrom75 (talk) 21:38, 5 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

That makes sense to me. Thanks, Andyrom75. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:14, 6 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

It is 2024 and the problem is still here. It seems that no consensus was reached in the end, we still don't know what version is best and now we are left with 3 variants of voivodeship naming:

1. English Wikipedia style: Lower Silesian Voivodeship, Opole Voivodeship, Silesian Voivodeship

2. Polish language with województwo omitted: Lubuskie, Wielkopolskie, Zachodniopomorskie, Pomorskie, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Łódzkie, Mazowieckie, Lubelskie, Podkarpackie, Świętokrzyskie, Podlaskie, Małopolskie

3. The odd one in English: Warmia-Masuria

Also there is suggestion to use nominative case wherever applicable, this would mean sticking with second option (+ voivodeship) as these are (or at least I think so) nominative case.

From my quick research it seems that Polish official tourist sites tend to stick to second option, while foreign travel blogs and news sites (and Wikipedia of course) seem to prefer first option. Third option is obviously wrong as regions don't correspond to administrative boundaries. Any ideas what to do? I am kinda confused myself so I will not suggest anything now. Krystian55 (talk) 15:37, 17 August 2024 (UTC)Reply

The regions map (File:Poland regions travel map revised (Edited).png) was deleted as "No license since 29 June 2024". I asked the deleting admin c:User:Krd about it, see Commons:User talk:Krd#Deletion of Poland_regions_travel_map_revised_(Edited).png. We might need to be quick to act, depending on what the actual problem was seen to be, either to sort out the permission problem or to create a new map without the problem. –LPfi (talk) 07:38, 24 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

The file was now restored, and a deletion request filed instead, see Commons:Deletion requests/File:Poland regions travel map revised (Edited).png. –LPfi (talk) 13:59, 26 July 2024 (UTC)Reply

See 2024:Travel - Wikimania (wikimedia.org) - some stuff from there might be useful here, if it hasn't been copied/coordinated already. @Msz2001 Piotrus (talk) 09:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)Reply